Saturday 23 August: How Labour destroyed a lifeline for Britain’s least privileged pupils

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

619 thoughts on “Saturday 23 August: How Labour destroyed a lifeline for Britain’s least privileged pupils

    1. Good morning Michael and all

      That's a pretty accurate summary – The UK going down the Tubes!!!

    2. A clever cartoon from the perspective of the good people who expect their government to do the right things in managing the Country. Now, turn that perspective 180 degrees, add in an agenda, aka Change, that is being pushed daily by continuous bland proclamations of intent, but, is in fact, pure bullshit, and you have the current government's position of success.

      Happening by chance? Employing people out of their depth as a cover for what's really going on has failed. We see you!

    1. Taking the piss out of the current shambolic European leadership with more than a touch of TDS.
      Political satire is still not dead.

    1. A Irwin
      12h
      OT; Mrs Connolly also suggested she is due to meet with the Donald Trump administration over a "free speech crackdown".
      Nothing in the MSM regarding this discussion.

      Strange the USA are aware of the details here yet 2TK was unaware of the details of the case 🤔

  1. A world EAGLE today – yippee! And Good Morning, chums, and a big Thank You to Geoff for today's new NoTTLe site.

    Wordle 1,526 2/6

    ⬜🟨⬜🟨🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. Thank you, kind Sir. (Courtsies). I must admit it was a most pleasant surprise. (Good morning, btw.)

  2. Good morning all.
    A slightly less cool start, a tad over 14½°C, dry, but dull and overcast with no wind.
    Forecast to be cloudy all day and, with a load of washing just hung out, hoping for a dry day.

    An excellent lead letter:-

    SIR – I am from a coal-mining village and was educated at my local grammar school. The school would regularly get 25 per cent of its pupils into university, and I went to the University of Oxford. I have spent my life since helping manufacturing businesses operate to world-class standards.

    I was offered a route away from “going down the pit” by a combination of dedicated teachers and a hard-nosed insistence on high standards in state education. Since then, the Labour Party has systematically destroyed that route for white working-class children (Letters, August 22).
    Comprehensive schools did not maintain a rigorous attitude to performance, thus letting down those bright working-class pupils who might not have had the confidence to rebuff peer pressure and stand out. Exams were dumbed down.

    Then there was the explosion of universities and the number of students attending them. This slowly degraded the worth of a degree, which used to be a reliable indicator of academic excellence and hard work, but can now be hard for employers to interpret.

    Add to this the imposition of tuition fees and the ending of maintenance grants, along with the decline of technical education and night schools, and less privileged children have faced obstacles at every turn.

    Excellence in education has been diminished – and Labour and the teaching unions should look in the mirror if they want to see why.

    Terry Riordan
    North Luffenham, Rutland

    1. My late Father was son of a mineworker from West Hartlepool. By hard graft and supportive parents, he took 3 degrees and rose to Professor Head of Department and Deputy Vice Chancellor at University.
      All that education was at the end of the War, when it was still unusual to enter University in the UK.

    1. Starmer could have reduced the tensions so easily, but no. He opted to exacerbate them with his references to Far Right Thugs and never once seriously addressing the horror and anger that was being felt at the time.

      1. "…never once seriously addressing the horror and anger that was being felt at the time."

        The absolute measure of the PM. (I couldn't bring myself to use the word 'man' in this context)

        1. He seems to have been able to pass all the exams he needed for a legal career by rote learning. He appears to have no original thoughts at all and his facial expression is dead-eyed.

      2. Meanwhile Axel Rubikuana the throat slasher gets his TV and DVDs back in his cell in the hope these privileges will make him behave.

        Personally i would like to see him tortured to death…slowly.

    2. The Lucy DT interview
      Lucy Connolly interview: ‘People hoped prison would break me. It didn’t’
      In her first interview since her release, the childminder reveals her anger towards Keir Starmer and her plans to reform the justice system
      https://archive.ph/sK4jE

    1. Or you could really hit the jackpot and end up on the slab.
      By Tuesday, will one, two or three "revellers" have crossed the Styx?
      Any advances?

  3. Re-reading the DM article on GCSE results which highlights the achievement of Michaela School and this caught my eye:-

    It came as pupils across the country were celebrating another top grades bonanza as one in five GCSE entries got at least a grade 7 or A following a rise on last year.

    "Another top grades bonanza"? Am I the only cynic who thinks "Grade Inflation"?

  4. After listening to the interviews with Lucy Connelly, I think Starmer/Hermer made a HUGE mistake in selecting their target. The support that she is going to attract nationwide via her personaliity and good sense will be bolstered by some big hitters around the world who all want to see the Starmer Marxist Gang crash and burn.

    1. Really? I have to admit, I found her personality rather off-putting in the two interviews (and before someone makes a snarky comment, I'm sure the feeling would be mutual). However, I would not employ a childminder who claims to be looking after 6-8 children and still finds time to be in the top 0.1% of twitter accounts by activity.

        1. Even on NOTTL…standards of discussion are slipping to the extent that people feel entitled to insult those who disagree with them.
          Please note that I am not insulting those of you who believe the story, even though I think it’s the biggest, steamiest pile of horseshit since covid.

    2. She gave a good overview of the political influence on her treatment by the judicial system. There is so much blithering about not making comments lest you prejudice the trial yet Sir Kweer made his thoughts quite clear. Hope she becomes a focus of the fight back for free speech.

      1. The government are more than happy to listen to autistic teenagers like Thurnburger. Lucy Connolly will be ignored.

        At their peril.

        1. Probably will be recalled for rabble rousing against the the guvment. If you want to see someone poking the establishment, see Alex Bellfield. A bit deranged, I suspect he enjoys prison food.

    1. Given the number of pedestrian crossings that were painted in alphabet soup colours, the Council of whereever that is do not have a leg to stand on when decrying the crosses.

      1. With many fading and wasting road markings around the country and of course the ever increasing pot holes. The far left councils seem to have found the time energy and productive inclination to over paint the Red St George's crosses.
        Keep it going Keep making sure that the lefties are cross.

  5. Good Morning!

    Dear Readers: Stop Hiding in the Today Page and Come Stir the Pot Where It Counts! Your Magazine Needs You! You are not out of the dog house yet, as we didn't quite get the two hundred comments we hoped for yesterday, but you can make up for it today by commenting on Iain Hunter's follow-up to yesterday's article on the Epping Forest judgement, Hotel Britain to Free Home Britain , on how the insane 'asylum hotel' business originated and what it's likely to evolve into. Needless to say, Blair, Soros and Serco get dishonourable mentions. So, rally round the flag folk, and get commenting under this fascinating article.

    Energy Watch: Over the last 24 hours: Britain's electric power was sourced from Gas, 33.8%; Solar, 8.5%: Wind 7.5%; Imports, 25.4%; Biomass, 11%; Nuclear 11% and Miscellaneous, 3%. Gas produced more than double the percentage of our power than wind and solar combined – but we also imported over a quarter of our power requirements.

    freespeechbaclash.com

  6. 411730+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Telegraph View
    Sir Keir Starmer has hung farmers out to dry
    Labour’s policies threaten the future of Britain’s countryside and rural economy.

    The plain to see fact is the political anti British TOOL is trying to break the very backbone of the Nation.

    The economy takes second place when your lifeline to the Countries larder is severed.

    We all have a steak in backing, supporting, the Farmers via IMHO the Farmers Food and Freedom party bring it on par with the Reform party, see it as a safety net, in case, insurance party as we have put all our eggs in one political party basket in times gone by only to find, repeatedly that
    repeating the same failure time after time
    is the act of criminal insanity.

      1. 411730+ up ticks,

        Morning S,

        I pointed it out to the missis in typing and asked, “who would be the first to bite”

  7. SIR — The St George’s Cross has been painted on roundabouts in various parts of the country, with councils complaining about the expense of removing it (report, August 20).

    I don’t recall such concerns when local authorities plastered Pride, LGBT and rainbow markings all over the place, including on zebra crossings.
    I actually think the St George’s Cross markings are an improvement on otherwise bland roundabouts. There would be plenty of volunteers ready to repaint the worn-out ones.

    Brian Thorne
    Shillingstone, Dorset

    Very true, Brian. Those (mainly Left-wing) councils cannot afford to repair potholes in roads yet they can immediately muster up a crew to repaint over English flags on roundabouts (and remove pennants from lamp-posts). Yet they fund the painting of all manner of 'woke' crap everywhere you care to look!

    This is because they are a cartel of politically-motivated Left-wing scum, placed into power by an idiotic and clueless public who have been brainwashed* into thinking that living in a socialist enclave is good for them.

    [*I say 'brainwashed', even though the majority just have a vacuum between their ears.]

    1. My local Labour-run council has taken the pragmatic decision to leave the flags in place.

      Stevenage Borough Council has decided not to take down a number of St George's flags that have been put up on lampposts around the town.

      The flags have appeared in a number of locations over the past week, including Six Hills Way and in the town centre.

      St George's and Union Jack flags being put up in public spaces have become a controversial issue across the UK, with groups responsible claiming the decision is "motivated by pride and patriotism", according to BBC News.

      A number of councils have taken the decision to remove the flags, most notably in Birmingham and Tower Hamlets, but Stevenage Borough Council has confirmed to The Comet that they will be left up in Stevenage.

      Tom Plater, Stevenage Borough Council portfolio holder for stronger communities said: "We are aware of the increased number of flags being displayed around Stevenage.

      "As a town which is proud of our history and heritage we welcome and support the patriotic flying of our nation's flags.

      "The Union Flag and the Cross of St George symbolise our national pride and when flown safely and appropriately, they help create and encourage a strong sense of community and togetherness – not forgetting, being flown in support of many sporting events, including the upcoming Women's Rugby World Cup.

      "We have always recognised, and will continue to recognise, key national days and special occasions by flying flags at our council offices and across the town and would encourage our community to also continue doing the same.

      "For now, Stevenage Borough Council will be leaving those flags which are not seen to be causing any danger or harm to the public.

      "Please can we ask that anyone displaying flags follows flag-flying guidance, puts them up safely, with consideration, and seeks permission from the landowner beforehand, especially at height, to ensure they don’t create a hazard.

      "Our priority as a council is to work with our communities so flags can continue to be displayed appropriately, with pride and safety in mind."

      https://www.thecomet.net/news/25411710.stevenage-council-leave-st-georges-flags-put/

    2. We NEED no other foreign flags flown from our flag posts .. we must keep our own flag sacred and meaningful .. it is our homeland flag. Leave it be , and if people want to paint red white and blue , so what , when the rain comes the paint will soon wash away… but for goodness sake allow us to build our sandcastles and give us the ability to decorate and tell the authorities , this is our home .. do not dictate what we can or can't do .. by us showing our famous flag .. whether it is by lorry/ car /ship / plane / train / scarf / t shirt or whatever .. don't deny us our identity , please.

      1. It's not allowed in Norway to fly anything other than the Norwegian flag or pennant (Vimpel) unless you have an official visitor from abroad.

    1. Why go back? It's not civilised, there are no bennies, the public transport doesn't work, housing is lousy, and so on.

    2. They’re not interested in a better life. They come to conquer. Odd that people don’t get that. The evidence is clear.

      1. Most people with a brain get that Sue but unfortunately none of them are in government

      2. It is simply a traditional invasion, of the old-fashioned, historical type, but because the invaders do not arrive in military uniform bearing arms, people refuse to see this. They take refuge in denial.

      3. SUE REID: Ten years ago, Angela Merkel opened Germany's borders to Syrian refugees. It was a trigger for mass arrivals across the Continent and a decade that changed Europe for ever

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15026181/decade-changed-Europe-refugees-mass-arrivals.html
        A quote from the article:
        Spanish coastguards were brought back from retirement to search the coast off Costa Blanca's beaches to scoop up migrants sailing to Europe from the north African coast.

        One evening in Alicante, as yet another coastguard boat carrying them headed for shore, I heard a group of schoolboys remarking ruefully: 'The Moors are invading us again.' They knew the history of the sixth-century Muslim conquest of their region.

        1. There is hope. We’ve been told so many lies.

          The Cordoba Myth. There was no golden age of Moorish enlightenment in Spain. It was pure savagery.

          The Spanish Inquisition and The Crisades were about Christian chauvinism. No, they weren’t.

          The Inquisition was about targeting the enablers so that the Moors couldn’t regroup. Approximately 10 thousand were killed, not the revisionist 92 million. Hell, there were fewer than 90 million people in the whole of Europe at the time.

          The Crusades were about defending Jerusalem after the Arabs attacked, not attacking Jerusalem for the sake of conquest. Sadly the crusaders were too few and ill-equipped.

    3. The worst country in the world for female genital mutilation is Ethiopia … and they are 90% Christian.

      1. Ethiopia is just one of those good old fashioned backward countries. Evolution takes time, whether of mind or body.

  8. Yet another reason to ditch MicroSod!

    Microsoft, as a provider of cloud services to the U.S. government, is required to regularly submit security plans to officials describing how the company will protect federal computer systems.
    Yet in a 2025 submission to the Defense Department, the tech giant left out key details, including its use of employees based in China, the top cyber adversary of the U.S., to work on highly sensitive department systems, according to a copy obtained by ProPublica. In fact, the Microsoft plan viewed by ProPublica makes no reference to the company’s China-based operations or foreign engineers at all.

    The document belies Microsoft’s repeated assertions that it disclosed the arrangement to the federal government, showing exactly what was left out as it sold its security plan to the Defense Department. The Pentagon has been investigating the use of foreign personnel by IT contractors in the wake of reporting by ProPublica last month that exposed Microsoft’s practice.

  9. Morning all 🙂😊😉 second attempt of the day.
    A more reasonable time to make a shout, sunny 13c.
    Labour are filled with destruction for our existing cultural aspects. They appeared to be filled with hate for our long established customs and way of life.
    David Starkey was also seen having a dig at the instigator of all these problems, B lair.
    There are currently many clips on FB showing (dreaded social media) that the British indigenous are rising up against all this. But our pathetic MSM doesn't appear to have the honesty to broadcast any of it.

    1. The MSM is ultimately owned by the very people the British indigenous are rising up against. So they are not going to add fuel to the fire that is just starting.

      1. It’s the playing out of the poem “When the English begin to hate”. We’re slow but injustice and unfairness really ignite our anger.

        1. And Norman and Saxon

          1
          "My son," said the Norman Baron, "I am dying, and you will be heir
          To all the broad acres in England that William gave me for share
          When he conquered the Saxon at Hastings, and a nice little handful it is.
          But before you go over to rule it I want you to understand this:–
          2
          "The Saxon is not like us Normans. His manners are not so polite.
          But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right.
          When he stands like an ox in the furrow – with his sullen set eyes on your own,
          And grumbles, 'This isn't fair dealing,' my son, leave the Saxon alone.
          3
          "You can horsewhip your Gascony archers, or torture your Picardy spears;
          But don't try that game on the Saxon; you'll have the whole brood round your ears.
          From the richest old Thane in the county to the poorest chained serf in the field,
          They'll be at you and on you like hornets, and, if you are wise, you will yield.
          4
          "But first you must master their language, their dialect, proverbs and songs.
          Don't trust any clerk to interpret when they come with the tale of their wrongs.
          Let them know that you know what they're saying; let them feel that you know what to say.
          Yes, even when you want to go hunting, hear 'em out if it takes you all day.
          5
          "They'll drink every hour of the daylight and poach every hour of the dark.
          It's the sport not the rabbits they're after (we've plenty of game in the park).
          Don't hang them or cut off their fingers. That's wasteful as well as unkind,
          For a hard-bitten, South-country poacher makes the best man-at-arms you can find.
          6
          "Appear with your wife and the children at their weddings and funerals and feasts.
          Be polite but not friendly to Bishops; be good to all poor parish priests.
          Say 'we,' 'us' and 'ours' when you're talking, instead of 'you fellows' and 'I.'
          Don't ride over seeds; keep your temper; and never you tell 'em a lie!"

          1. Good advice. Doubt if the Harmer has ever even heard of it let alone understood the message.

      2. What with AfGaff, a loathsome, vindictive government and a foreign invasion, Kipling is definitely coming back into vogue.
        The Beginnings
        Norman and Saxon
        The Young British Soldier

    1. Fair play, when you are fresh out of Uni & College of Policing.. you have to explain what an allotment is.

  10. Good morning all, another muggy night here .

    Dead mouse on the doorstep

    No sign of rain , 17c.. and the tractors are busy as the specialised harvesters are bringing in the maize .. wagons of crushed maize , shredded greenery and meagre cobs smashed to bits .. but the scent of the crushed maize as the tractor trailers drive by is delicious , truly , and I always wind down my car window as the machinery drives by .

    The maize harvest will be the last crop before the farmers then plough and get ready for winter/ spring crops ..

    If it is like last year with the heavy rain we had in the autumn , , we witnessed the sporadic growth in fields where the rain had made areas unworkable .

    Locals say things are bad for farmers , the animals are already eating the food / hay and silage that was meant to be for the winter months , there are lots of hungry grazing animals as well as horses .. the fields look dried up and golden , nothing there , and the cereal crops had hardly any growth ..

    Don't want to be depressing , but we ain't seen nuttin' yet!.. as the song goes .

    I keep several large trays of fresh water scattered around the garden for all the crawlies .

    1. Though we should all support our farmers the weather is never quite right as far as they are concerned.

      Good morning.

    2. The stud has been feeding the mares and foals hay as well as balancer for months. My horse who likes soft going has been running on the all-weather. I hope we do get some decent rainfall although it will be too late for me pastures. Grass loses its goodness after the end of August.

    3. We had meat & veg left for us in the living room – a dead shrew (unchewed) and tail-leaves (leaves that get stuck in longhaired cat's tails).
      Most thoughtful, but by the time I'd found them, we'd already had breakfast!

    4. We had meat & veg left for us in the living room – a dead shrew (unchewed) and tail-leaves (leaves that get stuck in longhaired cat's tails).
      Most thoughtful, but by the time I'd found them, we'd already had breakfast!

  11. SIR – You published two interesting and informative articles – one by Tim Sigsworth (report, August 20), the other by Patrick Galbraith (Comment, August 20) – on the ignorance of rewilding advocates.

    I live 600 feet up in the Pennines, on the border between Lancashire and Yorkshire. Once, regular controlled burning (or swaling) of the hills was carried out by landowners in the spring. This removed the dead thatch of the previous year, with the soot returning to the soil to feed fresh grass growth.

    Now I look up at the moorland and see dead, straw-coloured, totally useless grass: no new growth, and no chance of the reappearance of sphagnum moss. It is a tinder box just waiting for a spark.

    Why is this madness not being challenged?

    Peter Yarnall
    Milnrow, Lancashire

    How many of you can remember stubble burning .. after every harvest .. stubble burning cleared and cleansed the fields .

    Now the farmers lime the fields or spray muck everywhere , and the rank rancid stink of urine lingers for days

  12. Lucy Connolly. A different point of view.
    https://miri.substack.com/p/languishing-lucy-liberated-now-leave

    I don't think the travelling-home-in-a-taxi event is significant, it was obviously required that she leave with as little fanfare as possible. However the rest is interesting.

    My head is spinning. I feel fatigued, tired with it all, everything. I do get a sense we are being played. But perhaps I am simply late to the party.

    1. Good morning Poppiesmum.

      Phew , I have followed the link and read the Substack article .. I am confused .com , totally .

      Are we being fed fairy tales , you know , Red Riding Hood , or Three Billy goats gruff, or The Ginger Bread man , what on earth is going on ..

      The news reminds me of one of those little snowy glass globes that have a sweet little scene inside, shake it and watch the snow etc ..

      Is there still a department in government for tweaking human behaviour and response , I forget the real title, but there was something during Covid ?

      1. The Nudge Unit? More like the secret department for psychological warfare. They had one during the war and if it was ever disbanded they will have resurrected it. It used to be at Dunstable.

      2. The Nudge Unit, I think it was called, Belle. The thing is, I can see her point – there is something odd going on here, I have always thought this and the media is not in the habit of reporting the truth of a matter, ever, it is there for propaganda and manipulation. What is also odd is that her husband was also involved very early on in a covid ‘nudge’, I can’t remember exactly what it was now. My head is spinning with it all. It reminds me of how I felt over the McCann débacle – so much confusing and contradictory information.

    2. Well clearly she did speak out – to Allison Pearson and another (name?) so obviously not gagged.

      1. I find that very surprising. I'd bet that she's been warned not to be too outspoken, though.

        1. What could the government actually do?
          I mean realistically, not theoretically. (I know this bunch are a gang of vindictive dead eyed ideologues and are capable of pursuing their dogma to destruction, so national götterdämmerung is perfectly possible.)
          Yes, they could shove her back into gaol. Yes, they could send round an intimidation squad.
          Yes, they could threaten her husband's career or her daughter's education.
          But the case is now so infamous – and not just in Blighty where the media are easily cowed – that any action against her would be publicised throughout the world.

    1. Hope the weather is better than when I visited the place a couple of years ago. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cf3a1bf0909320f33b80bca2d7f11a96845aefd951ef91fe2c84712d6d2b9203.jpg
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a3133a060968511a7b932568fe94d13e6ef7bd029983a818cfbeace677159123.jpg
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/25df32d8c1d9bb01b9451f067cb6ddb00e7e11b2a177147f3ae55444ba69b72f.jpg
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/83880ddc28de35972471d4d3177e4ff6beeb9fc00510ff93d70245d222d3c2b6.jpg The day after, when I walked up from the other side, was much better.
      Sunrise after a VERY stormy night https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5da26e7ed2499c443e5b212bb0be05fd226604741eed252f37022d20120acccd.jpg Looking over the Seven Sisters https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/84e4aee721ee691219244c6fd690c349b65fc8761121eb744af508e08fdf72e0.jpg The lighthouse that got picked up and carried to a new location https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/821902c9d5e84df13a1dbce6a4c304a4e6b1bdbe335e63fdf3a53a36aa898a9c.jpg And a butterfly https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/628ae3123717781c9731b2068645a189760b93183012d4ce23402fc0f2255b31.jpg or two https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/91ff49a06b24f552dba13b7a7d31fc651a32f69a9cf04911f013adadbfddaa6f.jpg And a bit closer to the old lighthouse https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cd159157fb4b36830a2eebacfedbf6a00db9140e935547cdc43f6e4ea17fbd4c.jpg With an example of why it was moved https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5823e395cfee717a7c75a82ffb553c720e5cf83999f1bdaf75f0037417fd8e35.jpg And a last shot as I walked back to the Van. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ab77748e9fd9bd8447db6d7294e620095320485d1d1a9c6b7c38aeaad639638c.jpg

    2. Be sure to visit the Bomber Command memorial and apologise for our government. Over 55,000 air crew were killed to keep us from tyranny.

  13. Phew!
    Several 10 litre bucket loads of soil removed from the ledge and I've now got one min-bag full.
    Need another mini-bag to fill.

    1. Phew indeed, Bob! I haven’t got dressed yet! I am still in my dressing gown finishing my coffee!

  14. Morning everyone. Taking it easy today as I have a very busy day tomorrow.

    Labour hates aspiration. The worst sin is to want to better oneself. If they knew about it, I bet they’d be burning copies of John Halifax, Gentleman.

  15. Busy day coming up today – I've invited the neighbours (left and right) to dinner so a bit of work to do………..

          1. We’re having shoulder. It’s been in the freezer for a while, waiting for an occasion.

          2. A fairly low oven I think. Won’t spit so much either. There’s only part of the bone in it. “Easy carve”.

          3. Me too. Saturday evening is my usual treat of Spaghetti Bolognese with a glass of Chilean Merlot, followed by gooseberry crumble with double cream. So I will leave the lamb for Bank Holiday Monday. And for today my main chore is to prepare another saucepan of Bolognese sauce which usually lasts me for at least three Saturdays.

          4. I make my own. Three boned out chops each. Curled up and held together with toothpicks.

          5. We used to serve it quite often in my catering days……. a long boned out loin tied up with string and then cut into bite sized pieces. Nice and tender but I prefer shoulder.

  16. au revoir la France, la Grande-Bretagne ensuite

    Expert: Islamists are infiltrating French politics
    French political analyst Nicolas Monti explains to Steven Edington how immigration has transformed France.

    Summary
    France passed the tipping point.
    22% of electorate. Largest Muslim population in Europe.
    2 years away from the next election.
    Leftie Islam alliance will keep out any Right wing party.
    integration of 3rd gen migrants impossible. too late.
    Michel Houllebecq's 2015 novel Submission playing out.
    entryism strategy into established parties. brotherhood trying not too worry society.
    The New Palestine is in Marseille.. 52% of the residents are no longer French but ethnically Muslim refugees.

    Birmingham ten years behind.

    1. https://www.flagmakers.co.uk/products/flags/national-flag/united-kingdom/

      As Britain’s oldest flag maker, we are proud to offer one of the widest choices of UK flags available anywhere. We produce high-quality flags for customers up and down the country and offer a vast selection to pick from.

      From the iconic Union Jack, to the St Andrews Cross and Red Dragon of Wales, the flags of the United Kingdom are some of our most popular national flags. We also print county flags from Bedfordshire to Worcestershire in a range of sizes and print styles.

      1. On the stern of Mianda we sported the red ensign as you can see in the photo (and the other flags are shown under the text)

        Just below the first cross trees on the starboard side we displayed a courtesy flag of the country in whose waters we were sailing; on the port side we displayed club burgees such as those of the St Mawes Sailing Club or the Cruising Association. We also used to display the RNLI pennant before it became an organisation to assist with illegal immigration into the UK.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/257e0d8f7503c6c4899df20e8ddd2ade1db9c23281d3155673ddca2238cb7242.png
        In addition to the ensign on the stern we would also have been showing the burgees at cross-tree level and
        A Spanish courtesy flag as we were in Spanish waters. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6a9986e5db66fdb29dd7bac279ff250deab6d1f1243a3db3cce8110be7968913.png
        The Spanish flag

        and our other pennants. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dddcb92ed297e3a16ba039684eb3832905d9eeb61ccee65ec1928d3138286c32.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6ad87e325eb1060776a48a132025309cbfda363066352cf43bea8b3e20ac2d43.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/34b51db60fcc776e05c33efcb437e6b15184ee6c2e3bd38dfda9266c7c7f3a7b.png

      1. Good morning Sue,

        BT is having a rest , he and his dear other half are busy with other things .

        I think the news is so depressing , and all of us are helpless , apart from commenting and then I do hope no one is listening in on our conversations !

      2. He's taking a break Sue. He seems to have had enough of the current situation that we have in our country.

      3. He is out clambering up streetlights and attaching flags and working on a pro bono service for TR. Very busy chap….!

      4. He is taking some time out to do some gardening with the MR because the news is so depressing. His last post was Thursday evening usual time.

        1. I have talked to two people in real life, both of whom are very aware, who say they've given up the alternative media because they feel it's full of material that is trying to provoke an emotional reaction from them, as the legacy media does. They're both focusing on real life.
          I noticed above that Richard said the same, that he's taking a break for that reason.
          I think it's healthy to keep one's sanity.

          1. Indeed. I have been thinking the very same over the last few days. It is all too much, and yet I have an almost compulsive need to know in order that I can take evasive action so that I don’t literally walk into Trouble.

          2. I think we can take it that there is a lot of deliberate pot-stirring going on at the moment. The end of the current fiat currency run is too important not to be managed down to the last detail. I try to avoid the “alt news” videos with lots of exclamation marks!! and follow financial commentators. From my financial commentators I get that they think a bond crisis is imminent. The weekend of 20th September has been mentioned. Surprise surprise, the big free speech demo in London is the week before.
            I would try to decouple from Telegram style news and videos and make sure you’re as well prepared for unrest as you can be. Few of us can do more than that.

    1. The news is all the unrest around our country Anne, but I'd suggest the government are controlling the media and don't want the British indigenous population to be aware of it.
      A lot of it is on Facebook.

  17. What the hell are you doing..?
    An Austrian court has ruled that Sharia law is now legally binding in civil disputes

    Feel that? The Winged Hussars spinning in their graves.

    1. Not to mention John III Sobieski (Gates of Vienna) and Charles Martel (Battle of Tours).

      1. Who will give us victory in the battles of Tower Hamlets, Birmingham, Bradford, Luton, Telford and countless other places?

    2. Two parties to a contract agreed, beforehand, that in the event of dispute, an arbitration panel would decide according to Islamic law. One party rejected the outcome of such an arbitration and took his complaint to a Vienna court, where it was decided that the decision of the arbitration panel was valid. The complainant was foolish to agree to that contractual term.

      https://brusselssignal.eu/2025/08/austrian-court-allows-use-of-islamic-sharia-law-in-private-contracts/

  18. Lucy Connolly to meet Trump officials for talks on free speech
    Former childminder will meet with Sarah Rogers, the nominee for Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, on Saturday

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/23/lucy-connolly-trump-officials-meet-free-speech-sarah-rogers/

    BTL

    The way that Starmer instructed the legal system to clamp down on ordinary people whom he branded as "far right" was a clear abuse of power for which he should be held criminally responsible.

    The foundations of a democratic society depend on the maintenance of a clear separation of powers: the judiciary, the the legislature and the executive. There is no doubt that Starmer has violated this and he should suffer the severest of consequences.

    1. All this destruction, abuse of power and awfulness by Starmer&Co is to make us reject any idea that we are capable of, nor would we want to, govern ourselves ever again. It all deliberate, to send us rushing into the arms of the NWO/WEF government t deliver us from this evil.. Starmer does not have his eyes on a 2029 election because there won't be one. His prize lies in Davos, with the WEF. He is not interested in the UK, he has stated as such. Our only hope lies in forcing a GE in some way in the next year or so.

  19. Trying to work out how the countries of Europe that allow so many people to pass through their countries while directed towards the channel will not take any of them back and do not legally have to, yet they let them in.
    Countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa will not take their nationals back, they do not legally have to.
    Yet when these people arrive here on our shores we are bound by international laws that will not let us return them or even to stop them from crossing the channel.
    Yet Trump in the USA has no problem sending all his illegal migrants back and appears to have stopped those going there in the process.
    Is there some sort of globalist two tier international law being enacted on our country, or are we just being hoodwinked by our political establishment into accepting that we are powerless to prevent people coming here at will, while some globalist agenda experiment is being played out?

    1. I like Dave Allen's sketch where he faces a horde of invading immigrants coming up the beach and shouts "Land Mine" whereupon the leading group encounters a catastrophic explosion after which he says "NoLand Mine!".

    2. Trump is quite capable of taking economic revenge on the countries that are near the US – and they know it.

      1. Getting confused between an elk (a deer) and a gnu (a cow) is a bit like getting confused between a skunk and an armchair!

      1. I was always under the impression that Saint George was from the middle east. And the fair maiden was the British culture and the dragon was Islam.
        That’s precisely why lots people don’t like all the English flag waving.

        1. The pic is a Winged Hussar. St George came from Cappadocia, which is Turkey now but at the time was part of the Roman Empire.

    1. This always reminds me of the first verse of G.K.Chesterton's The Rolling English Road.

      Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
      The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
      A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
      And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
      A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
      The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

      If beachy is an euphemism for bald then my head is pretty beachy too. However I always take comfort from the fact that baldness is caused by a high level of testosterone which means that bald men are more virile.

      1. 'The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.'

        Ah stapped off in Leith.
        On ma way up tae Keith.
        When I got lost in Beith
        I was sick tae the Teith!

        ©2008 Grizzly

  20. I'm puzzled why the case of the Menendez brothers, found guilty of murdering their parents in the US, featured in second place on BBC News when their application for parole was rejected. British interest in the matter is marginal and ought to rank lower than Lucy Connolly and the Notting Hill Carnival, both of which were later in the half-hour segment.

    1. It was a big thing here when it happened. From descriptions and evidence, it seems both brothers are psychos. Not sure they ever should be let out.

    1. "Lucy Connolly you have pleaded guilty to the offence of distributing material with the intention of stirring up racial hatred."

      Although Connolly tells us she felt pressured, coerced even, into making that plea, it is a bare fact. The BBC's headline is not incorrect, in that sense.

      1. On fact, it was some Leftard activist who distributed it, from what i can work out

      2. An interesting choice of charge though – the Black Belt Barrister did a very interesting commentary on the difference in charges between Connolly and Ricky Jones!

    1. What can he do? Electricity is already cheap to make. He can't avoid the 20p of taxes Milioaf slaps on it at source and in levies.

      Energy generation cost isn't the problem. Government policy is..

  21. 411730+ up ticks,

    Farage pledges five deportation flights a day under Reform plans
    Party leader also wants to house asylum seekers in detention centres on military bases and potentially send some to Ascension Island,

    ALL rhetorical, talks cheap and tax payers money buys houses for illegals.
    Right "nige" i'll raise you two flights and a troop carrying liner,and so it goes on whilst at the very least 300 a day come ashore.

    To many things can go wrong with the Reform set up via its political leading hierarchy, to entrust it with winning outright and without a safety net party in attendance.

    We will be, in the next General Election voting IMHO contesting for the English worlds end/or not, it is of that much importance.

    The Farmers Food and Freedom Party

    1. Farage has unveiled a £10billion 'mass deportation' plan that would see five migrant flights leave the UK every day if Reform take power.***

      Small print in minuscule text **
      mass deportation of migrants = those arriving on or after July 1st 2029. Existing undocumentated citizens are free to roam & rape, and are as English as a sweet semolina halwa for breakfast.

      1. This is why Farage got rid of Rupert Lowe.

        Rupert Lowe argued that all illegal immigrants already in the UK should be deported and not just the new arrivals.

        Of course Zia Yusuf persuaded Farage not to pledge to remove allillegal immigrants.

        Yusuf clearly used to have Farage by the short and curlies but now he has him by the testicles and if Farage doesn't do what he's told to do Yusuf will squeeze.

        Of course the next four years will see a very great surge in illegal immigrant numbers and this will be fueled by the fact that illegals will want to arrive in the UK before there is a Reform government.

    2. All very easy to say, but where will they go? He will face an absolute onslaught from the state machine – what will be dismantled and in what order to prevent that? How long will that take?

    1. There are currently more than 50,000 migrants who have appealed against their rejected asylum claims.

      Who are these migrants?
      HO: Dunno.
      Where are they exactly. Do you have records?
      HO: Somewhere.

      You are better to leave as is.. let it simmer.. let it get much much much worse.. leave it until the last straw arrives.. then Starmer & Labour will be seen as Too Little Too Late.

        1. Some divots need to be replaced with new ones rather than putting the old one back in the hole.

    2. We don't actually need to. The problem is the utterly facile excuses used to chain the gimmigrants here and the intentional hopelessness of the state in rejecting them.

      Government lawyers simply are not bothering.

  22. SIR – As a Right-wing patriot who agrees with Nigel Farage and James Orr ("The British Right should put Kent before Kyiv", Comment, August 20), I am insulted to have my views described as "perverted patriotism" ("Russia is the new dividing line on Britain's Right", Comment, August 22).

    Everyone accepts that Vladimir Putin was wrong to invade Ukraine, but it should be possible to explain what part the West played in causing the conflict – namely that it was deaf to Russia's genuine security concerns – without this leading to insults.

    We need to have this debate in order to understand what is at stake in the conflict.

    Mina Bowater
    Blandford Forum, Dorset

    This debate started with Charles Moore's column last Saturday "Perverted liberalism has led to neo-Marxism, perverted patriotism may yet lead to neo-fascism". Orr's response was followed by Daniel Johnson's "Russia is the new dividing line on Britain’s Right" in which he likened Farage to Mosley.

      1. He had right on his side until 2022. Indeed, when Russians in the east of Ukraine started causing trouble shortly after the Kiev riots in 2014, he should have reined them in* and said "Let the West make its own mistakes." After all, it was the CIA under Barry O's command who started it all.

        *Unless, of course, he instructed them.

  23. After his nonsense last week, here's Charles Moore sounding a bit more like Charles Moore. He echoes David Starkey's recurrent theme of Britain's success and exceptionalism being built on property rights, personal initiaitive and small government keeping its nose out.

    Labour's tax raid on family businesses and farms is an assault on the pillars of our free society

    This Government is much more comfortable with large multi-nationals than smaller enterprises that are the building blocks of our prosperity

    Charles Moore
    22nd August 2025, 12:52pm BST

    In a way, it is a pity that support for farmers threatened by Rachel Reeves's abolition of Agricultural Property Relief (APR) tends to be presented chiefly in "heritage" terms.

    This is not surprising. The future of the land and those who work it is bound to arouse strong emotions, in which nostalgia plays a part. Having been brought up on a farm without ever having been a farmer, I am susceptible to Rudyard Kipling's support for the obstinate Saxon "when he stands like an ox in his furrow".

    The new taxes become payable in April next year. As I watch the current (poor) harvest on farms round us, I grieve at the thought that, for some, it will be the last.

    These emotions are justified, but they tend to distract from something wider that the Government's changes intend, which is to attack a particular way of doing business. This will damage property and prosperity.

    As well as abolishing APR, the Chancellor is also abolishing Business Property Relief (BPR). Not only farms, but family businesses generally, and other private businesses, will now have to pay inheritance tax when an owner of the business dies.

    Farmers get both APR and BPR (the latter for livestock, machinery and crops in store, rather than the land and buildings). But nowadays they get BPR for other things too. In the not very distant past, many farming families just farmed. In the post-war era of being paid by production, that made sense. In more recent times, however, as automatic subsidy has (rightly) diminished, farmers have diversified.

    One I know, a big farmer in southern England, claims APR on the land being actively farmed. He claims BPR on his trading businesses – letting his large, old, main house for corporate stays, renting out 70 bed spaces in holiday cottages, offering long lets, going in for renewable energy (solar and biomass), running a campsite and selling storage. The annual turnover of his family partnership is about £1.5m. Over more than 30 years, the business has gone from overall loss to a profit and, as he puts it, "The place is no longer falling down."

    The capital value of his assets – overwhelmingly, land – is very high, but the annual return on the businesses is well below one per cent. (It is worth adding that, according to Defra's own figures, the average return on capital of British farms today is minus 0.8 per cent.) So when this farmer/entrepreneur inherits on his mother's death, the 20 per cent inheritance tax (IHT) to be imposed by Ms Reeves will either have to be paid out of income over a long period – income which would itself be taxed at 45 per cent – or it would force a sale. As well as IHT, capital gains tax would be payable on anything sold.

    This would not mean that the farmer and his family would then be dirt poor. If they sold up, they would have something to live on. But it would mean that their business model would be shot to bits. Something constructed to last and grow, rather like a sapling planted, protected and then gradually becoming a mature tree, would have been blasted.

    That in turn means that the expectation which has driven the owners of the business to work pretty much 365 days a year is disappearing. They have been trying to ensure their work is built to last. In future, it will just sit there waiting to be confiscated.

    Until now, new investment and new projects for such businesses have made sense because they help build long-term success. Now they will just accumulate eventual bills, with what were the tools of the trade now taxable as personal assets. You invest to increase value: in future that value will be penalised. Defra offers capital grants to invest in the business, but if IHT comes in, the same business will be whacked for what it has received. So, in short, why bother?

    In particular, why pass the family business on? You are probably bequeathing a wasting asset to your children and you are certainly laying upon them financial and fiscal burdens which will turn their hair prematurely grey. Realising this, many of the next generation won't want it anyway. They will prefer assets which are mobile and free of responsibility. Who can blame them?

    This demoralisation also creates wider social ripples. If you have no expectation of long-term growth and improving the environment in which you live and work, your incentive and capacity to help your community through your business diminish. Why give a bit of land on a peppercorn rent so that local children can have a football pitch or a village hall extension can be built?

    The historic pattern of voluntary activity in most communities is almost always related to thriving family businesses or, in rural areas, to benevolent holders of land. With no sense of security, their benevolence inevitably diminishes.

    If farms and other family businesses are treated thus, what does that mean for the creation of new businesses in future?

    There can be few famous firms which started big. Most great household names began small. In 1869, Sainsbury's was just Mr and Mrs John Sainsbury in their grocery shop in Drury Lane. In 1884, Marks and Spencer was just Mr Marks with a penny bazaar in Leeds Kirkgate Market (Mr Spencer, a cashier, joined him ten years later). In 1945, J.C. Bamford made his first tipping trailer in a rented garage in Uttoxeter.

    All thrived and grew as family businesses; indeed, JCB still is one. All began in societies much poorer than our own, but all benefitted from the British freedom to start up and keep going upwards which has severely declined in this century.

    I wonder why Labour does not see this. Some of the problem will be ideology – instinctive resentment of independent, usually non-unionised businesses; suspicion of anyone who owns land; a more modern, green, "rewilding" antipathy to the very idea of working the land, especially if it produces meat; a profound misapprehension that wealth is like a pile of gold hidden in some old miser's chest, rather than something created by the combination of labour and capital.

    There is also plain, straightforward ignorance in a cabinet none of whose members have inherited, run or set up a business. Perhaps too, there is a political calculation – that potential or actual Labour voters will be pleased to see "the rich" punished.

    But I wonder if Labour has asked itself who will benefit. The total gain to the Treasury is probably no more than a few days' interest on government debt. The beneficiaries are all those entities who, because they are corporate, never die (and therefore never pay IHT), and/or, because they are foreign-based, avoid British tax, or they are individuals who, because they are very rich indeed, can arrange a tax-convenient domicile. They may very well be interested in buying up land and property which a much poorer farmer, living where he works, has been made to surrender. Thus does socialism benefit plutocrats. Labour seems oddly incurious about this self-contradiction.

    And what can all these farmers and family business-people do to avoid what is coming, I asked an accountant, all of whose clients are adversely affected. "Well," he said, "the tax arrives in April, and it is a tax on death. So I am afraid the most rational thing to do is to kill yourself before then." He was joking, but only sort of.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/22/labours-tax-raid-on-family-businesses-and-farms-is-an-assau

  24. After his nonsense last week, here's Charles Moore sounding a bit more like Charles Moore. He echoes David Starkey's recurrent theme of Britain's success and exceptionalism being built on property rights, personal initiative and small government keeping its nose out.

    Labour's tax raid on family businesses and farms is an assault on the pillars of our free society

    This Government is much more comfortable with large multi-nationals than smaller enterprises that are the building blocks of our prosperity

    Charles Moore
    22nd August 2025, 12:52pm BST

    In a way, it is a pity that support for farmers threatened by Rachel Reeves's abolition of Agricultural Property Relief (APR) tends to be presented chiefly in "heritage" terms.

    This is not surprising. The future of the land and those who work it is bound to arouse strong emotions, in which nostalgia plays a part. Having been brought up on a farm without ever having been a farmer, I am susceptible to Rudyard Kipling's support for the obstinate Saxon "when he stands like an ox in his furrow".

    The new taxes become payable in April next year. As I watch the current (poor) harvest on farms round us, I grieve at the thought that, for some, it will be the last.

    These emotions are justified, but they tend to distract from something wider that the Government's changes intend, which is to attack a particular way of doing business. This will damage property and prosperity.

    As well as abolishing APR, the Chancellor is also abolishing Business Property Relief (BPR). Not only farms, but family businesses generally, and other private businesses, will now have to pay inheritance tax when an owner of the business dies.

    Farmers get both APR and BPR (the latter for livestock, machinery and crops in store, rather than the land and buildings). But nowadays they get BPR for other things too. In the not very distant past, many farming families just farmed. In the post-war era of being paid by production, that made sense. In more recent times, however, as automatic subsidy has (rightly) diminished, farmers have diversified.

    One I know, a big farmer in southern England, claims APR on the land being actively farmed. He claims BPR on his trading businesses – letting his large, old, main house for corporate stays, renting out 70 bed spaces in holiday cottages, offering long lets, going in for renewable energy (solar and biomass), running a campsite and selling storage. The annual turnover of his family partnership is about £1.5m. Over more than 30 years, the business has gone from overall loss to a profit and, as he puts it, "The place is no longer falling down."

    The capital value of his assets – overwhelmingly, land – is very high, but the annual return on the businesses is well below one per cent. (It is worth adding that, according to Defra's own figures, the average return on capital of British farms today is minus 0.8 per cent.) So when this farmer/entrepreneur inherits on his mother's death, the 20 per cent inheritance tax (IHT) to be imposed by Ms Reeves will either have to be paid out of income over a long period – income which would itself be taxed at 45 per cent – or it would force a sale. As well as IHT, capital gains tax would be payable on anything sold.

    This would not mean that the farmer and his family would then be dirt poor. If they sold up, they would have something to live on. But it would mean that their business model would be shot to bits. Something constructed to last and grow, rather like a sapling planted, protected and then gradually becoming a mature tree, would have been blasted.

    That in turn means that the expectation which has driven the owners of the business to work pretty much 365 days a year is disappearing. They have been trying to ensure their work is built to last. In future, it will just sit there waiting to be confiscated.

    Until now, new investment and new projects for such businesses have made sense because they help build long-term success. Now they will just accumulate eventual bills, with what were the tools of the trade now taxable as personal assets. You invest to increase value: in future that value will be penalised. Defra offers capital grants to invest in the business, but if IHT comes in, the same business will be whacked for what it has received. So, in short, why bother?

    In particular, why pass the family business on? You are probably bequeathing a wasting asset to your children and you are certainly laying upon them financial and fiscal burdens which will turn their hair prematurely grey. Realising this, many of the next generation won't want it anyway. They will prefer assets which are mobile and free of responsibility. Who can blame them?

    This demoralisation also creates wider social ripples. If you have no expectation of long-term growth and improving the environment in which you live and work, your incentive and capacity to help your community through your business diminish. Why give a bit of land on a peppercorn rent so that local children can have a football pitch or a village hall extension can be built?

    The historic pattern of voluntary activity in most communities is almost always related to thriving family businesses or, in rural areas, to benevolent holders of land. With no sense of security, their benevolence inevitably diminishes.

    If farms and other family businesses are treated thus, what does that mean for the creation of new businesses in future?

    There can be few famous firms which started big. Most great household names began small. In 1869, Sainsbury's was just Mr and Mrs John Sainsbury in their grocery shop in Drury Lane. In 1884, Marks and Spencer was just Mr Marks with a penny bazaar in Leeds Kirkgate Market (Mr Spencer, a cashier, joined him ten years later). In 1945, J.C. Bamford made his first tipping trailer in a rented garage in Uttoxeter.

    All thrived and grew as family businesses; indeed, JCB still is one. All began in societies much poorer than our own, but all benefitted from the British freedom to start up and keep going upwards which has severely declined in this century.

    I wonder why Labour does not see this. Some of the problem will be ideology – instinctive resentment of independent, usually non-unionised businesses; suspicion of anyone who owns land; a more modern, green, "rewilding" antipathy to the very idea of working the land, especially if it produces meat; a profound misapprehension that wealth is like a pile of gold hidden in some old miser's chest, rather than something created by the combination of labour and capital.

    There is also plain, straightforward ignorance in a cabinet none of whose members have inherited, run or set up a business. Perhaps too, there is a political calculation – that potential or actual Labour voters will be pleased to see "the rich" punished.

    But I wonder if Labour has asked itself who will benefit. The total gain to the Treasury is probably no more than a few days' interest on government debt. The beneficiaries are all those entities who, because they are corporate, never die (and therefore never pay IHT), and/or, because they are foreign-based, avoid British tax, or they are individuals who, because they are very rich indeed, can arrange a tax-convenient domicile. They may very well be interested in buying up land and property which a much poorer farmer, living where he works, has been made to surrender. Thus does socialism benefit plutocrats. Labour seems oddly incurious about this self-contradiction.

    And what can all these farmers and family business-people do to avoid what is coming, I asked an accountant, all of whose clients are adversely affected. "Well," he said, "the tax arrives in April, and it is a tax on death. So I am afraid the most rational thing to do is to kill yourself before then." He was joking, but only sort of.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/22/labours-tax-raid-on-family-businesses-and-farms-is-an-assau

    1. Can farming families set up their business so that the business, rather the father and sons, owns the business? Would that get round the inheritance tax? I don't know – I guess people would have thought of that.

    2. It’s not just farmers (disgraceful as it is). All IHT is a disincentive to bother working

    3. Yet Labour can't conceive of that. Their very charter demands that everything be broken.

      1. "Their very charter demands that everything be taken." Basic socialism/communism.

        Interesting to note that the way China has become a superpower was to basically dump communism, and let their entrepreneurs rip. They may still talk about the Communist Party, but they behave like capitalists – as long as one stays within the guard rails. Besides Communism does not have millionaires – which China does and lauds them for their efforts.

        1. I read that China's success comes from combining the worst characteristics of capitalism with the worst characteristics of communism. I'm not well-enough informed to assess this, but it seems a pretty reasonable description of what the CCP has done.

    1. Humans Keep Playing Tricks on It

      Chess robot grabs and breaks finger of seven-year-old opponent
      Moscow incident occurred because child ‘violated’ safety rules by taking turn too quickly, says official

      1. Err, when I've played speed chess some of the tables are a blur as hands whip out, move pieces, flick to the chess clock and the opponent is up before the other has even retreated off the board.

    1. I remember paying to see one when the fair came to town. The tattooed lady was the other "attraction". Both nasty looking to a young boy. Or an old man…

  25. Was awake far too early but emptied the washer, hung the washing out, tumbled the bed linen and folded that for putting away.

    Lucy was up so we went for a walk, then came back and went out again. Dogs fed and watered at 8 and then I fell asleep again. I'm looking for a wireless keyboard and mouse. I like my logitech MX as it fits my bear sized hands better but it's getting on now.

    1. I did a wash, then ran the dishwasher then took the dogs. Came back and emptied both machines and put the crocks away and hung up the washing.

    1. It was quite annoying when our lovely black Lab use to roll in fox poo. I had to take her out side and hose her down. It absolutely stank.

  26. Fury as British Paralympians 'turn their backs' on Israeli team during their national anthem in 'hugely offensive' protest
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

    I find it depressing that those unfortunate people who are physically crippled have been manipulated by HAMAS propaganda into being on the side of rapists, kidnappers and murderers who use hostages, and human shields and starve their own people claiming it is the Israeli State and Jews who are responsible.

    1. I watched the Men’s Paralympic Basketball bronze playoff in Athens 2004. We beat the Dutch, which was unexpected but a brilliant game! Ade Adepitan was British captain, and the team were amazing. I’m shocked and disgusted how far they have fallen, and having been involved in basketball for over 25 years, I am very sad.

      1. Keep politics out of Paralympic sport especially the sort of politics that approves of rape, murder, kidnap,starvation and the use of human shields.

        1. The door to my Doctor surgery had a Palestinian/Pride flag on it. Saying everyone welcome.
          I was rather annoyed.

          I'm sure the young lady manning the desk wouldn't appreciate being gagged and tied to a tree. Raped repeatedly and then have her breasts sliced off.

          1. I didn't. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the young lady. I might complain to the practice manager though.
            Trouble is they can get a bit shirty and take you off the books as a troublemaker.

            Perhaps i will do it anonymously with a note. Attached to a housebrick.

          2. The surgery has already refused me treatment for my blood clots in my legs because i smoke. At the same time treating drug addicts and alcoholics and anyone who arrives on a dinghy regardless of their health history.

          3. I was tempted. Covered by cameras of course. As it is a bank holiday i might wear all black and a mask and pretend i am a phone thief. The plods aren’t interested in them so i would probably get away with it.

      2. One of my niece's sons plays para basketball and has played for England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿.

        1. Good for him! It’s a brutal and exciting game! Our younger daughter was a para basketball table official at the 2012 Olympics.

    2. There was a small group protesting outside Waitrose this morning – telling people not to buy any Israeli produce. I thought – "sod off " – I'll buy what I want."

      1. "Gaza is the rallying point for the Radical Left & Islam. However, what they really mean is.. They want the downfall of The West. This isn't spontaneous, this is funded by our enemies."
        Dominic Cummings

        beware Tabitha & Tristam.. you're being played like a fiddle.

    3. Not only that but turning their prisoners into potential paralympians is considered normal practice.

  27. David Lammy is off the hook. No fine for him for fishing without a licence.

    I'm sure someone said recently that no one is above the law.

    1. He apologised for the administrative error and bought licences retrospectively.

      Isn't that rather like deleting an offensive tweet and apologising…/sarc

      1. They originally were told that licences cannot be bought retrospectively, and that people will always be prosecuted! 🤔

        1. The sad thing is if he had been prosecuted perhaps more folk would think twice about not buying a fishing licence?

          1. I don’t think £14.70 is a huge amount for 2 rods! Here in central Scotland it’s a very popular pastime with a lot of youngsters and old folk!

          2. I fished when i visited Skye. I didn't have a licence. Didn't catch any fish either.

            I was glad of the no fishing sign just below the cemetery !

          3. "Didn't catch any fish either."
            Maybe tjhe sign was a misprint – the 'ing' was added in error.

    1. I saw a Muslim woman on a bus this morning with a baby buggy with two cats in it. Both were wearing harnesses with bows on and one was passive while she had to keep hold of the other. A first for me.

      1. Dear life. A cat shouldn't be treated that way. They get used to it. I said absolutely not to the pink bow the Warqueen wanted to put on Lucy.

  28. I am making Capricciosa pizza tomorrow. Artichoke hearts and quartered boiled eggs, Kalamata olives. Home made tomato sauce, ham and Buffala Mozarella.

    How posh is me…..!

    Think some sparkling will go well with that.

        1. Yersse!

          Me I'm planning:
          Melon & Prosciutto
          Lasagna with green salad (with Balsamic & Virgin olive oil dressing
          2023 Penfolds Koonunga Hill, Sriraz / Cabernet (14.5% ABV)
          Fresh fruit salad with genuine Greek yoghurt & honey…

      1. I have cheated though. Can't be bothered to make the dough so i bought in.

        It will still qualify as freshly made.

        It's one of those pizzas you don't often see outside Italy. Too sophisticated for the sofa and take away crowd.

    1. Very nice. I don’t know if I will do a beef casserole, hot pot or cottage pie. Depends on how I’m feeling when I get back and what ingredients I can rustle up to go with the recipe I can find.

      1. “Buffala,” is mozzarella di bufala, is a type of fresh mozzarella cheese made from the milk of Italian Mediterranean buffaloes.

  29. Had a thought about the planned IHT raid on Farms.

    If Reform were to pledge that if elected they would pass an Act of Parliament that would restore ownership of the farm to those beneficiaries in the farmer's will – would it not make the land 'valueless' and therefore unsaleable?

    1. Wouldn't it just be more practical to scrap inheritance taxes of any and all sorts?

      This constant fiddling with the tax code is what has caused most of our problems. The thing is 17,000 pages long. More rational economies get by with one hundredth of that.

    1. As another human being, she is simply immature, spiteful, childish and lacking in any sense of awareness of the depth of how wrong she is about everything she believes in.

    2. Oh give it a rest, woman. First she’s had major heart surgery – no, she had a TAVI procedure. She now has a cows heart – no, she has a bovine valve. She only has six years to live – well maybe, given that she’s 84 now.

    3. It's a shame really, she used to be quite funny but she descended into some foulmouth leftie harridan.

      God Bless her, I will always remember her fondly as the Spanish Infanta in Blackadder…

  30. Australia: however, how soon before Reeves starts eyeing this as another opportunity to garner in more tax to pay for the 'replacement'. Clearly she hasn't any idea how to stimulate the economy – difficult to achieve when you're importing thousands of people who rely on government largesse to merely exist – and stop the collapse that is heading our way.

    https://x.com/Real_King_Elvis/status/1959051272407196004

    1. How would she define a bedroom? I would take out the bed and install a mini torture chamber for any passing civil servant prodnose.

      *Nobody* expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise, surprise and fear, fear and surprise. Our *two* weapons are fear and surprise, and ruthless efficiency. Our *three* weapons are fear and surprise and ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical dedication to the pope. Our *four*… No… Amongst our weapons… Amongst our weaponry are such elements as fear, sur- I'll come in again.
      [leaves]

    1. Because that type will always be the victim, whining and wheedling in their cowardice.

    2. Only one of them stabbed the victim. The prosecution has to show that it was a "join enterprise" and, therefore, that all three are guilty. Although the chase is on camera, the actual stabbing isn't. The accused also claim that the victim was threatening them and were fearful he would attack them. I don't believe this attempt to portray it as self-defence in the face of provocation, but the court will have to sift through all the evidence to show how improbable that line of defence is.

        1. Almost certainly, but the two who did not wield the knife might get away with pleading not guilty to murder.

      1. Aman in Ontario has been charged with assault after he beat the crap out of a home invader on Monday night.

        Apparently if you are woken by a burger at 1:30 AM, you must consider what is reasonable force before defending yourself.

        Needless to say, tThe burgelr was out on bail, mustn't upset the offender of course.

        1. I have sharpened umbrellas in my porch. An axe in my bedside drawer and a powerful air pistol in the other. Holed and quartered.

    3. The Ricky “Slit their throats” defence? If you can’t use the race card, move straight to the ADHD one. If desperate, add PE in pants.

  31. Wordle No. 1,526 2/6

    🟩⬜🟩🟨⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 23 Aug 2025

    A brace of Eagles?

        1. Why GGGG? If you change the order of the posts from Newest to Oldest you will see my result virtually at the top.

    1. WWow Impressive. I had another case of pick a letter, any letter!

      Wordle 1,526 5/6

      ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟩
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Impressive! A par for me.

      Wordle 1,526 4/6

      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟨
      ⬜🟨🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. When I got the word I thought you'd be a cert for an Eagle! 'just' a birdie here…..

      Wordle 1,526 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟨⬜🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    4. Very good.

      Took me four lines but I thought of your first line when completed.

      Wordle 1,526 4/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
      ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. The 'victim' must have been blind – it doesn't look much like a woman. Nice five o'clock shadow.

      1. You should see his lower half! He’s wearing grey leggings and leaving nothing to the imagination! 🤢

  32. Hearing the nice "crack" of someone engaging in target practice not too far away. We have few robberies round here, as everyone knows this is a huntin' and shootin' state. And if you pop a burglar in your house, there's none of this "proportional force" nonsense.

          1. According to the date on the sundial we found in the original garden wall it was 1789 or 1798!

          2. We searched for nearly 18 months to find it! I absolutely love the house and garden.💕

      1. Starmer is a civilian. He knows nothing about troop deployment, tactics and warfare. In this respect he is as useless as the hundreds of generals and admirals advising him.

        In any event Putin has warned the west against putting troops on the ground in Ukraine. The idiot Starmer is tin-eared in addition to his many other failings.

    1. And sending a large force from the British army "to monitor" in Ukraine would get loyal soldiers out of the picture.

    2. Bond market crisis due around 20th-22nd September.
      13th September – large free speech march organised by TR – lots of agents prov. – 2TK declares martial law.
      And of course, between now and 13th September, St Lucy Connolly will be stirring up people's anger.

      Not a bad plan, if that is the plan.
      I personally would not go near London on 13th September.

      1. I'm on my way to Edinburgh that day.
        Fortunately by car, so no need to go near London.

        1. Route by train to Edinburgh avoiding London:-
          Colchester-Ipswich-Cambridge-Peterborough-Edinburgh

  33. This letter from today's DT strikes a chord: They used to say the same about Nigerian workmen when I lived there.

    SIR – I sympathise with Ian Wallace over his DIY failures. My mother used to say about my father: “Give him the job and he’ll finish the tools.”

    Hamish Watson
    Marlborough, Wiltshire

    1. Lovely. Meanwhile I am so fed up of being cold I have lit a fire. I am burning the old wood from when my studio was repaired. It’s only August for heaven’s sake!

      1. Are you unwell? It's not that cold here. I had a fleecy top on but I've taken it off as I've been busy.

      2. Damned chilly here too, Conners. Been wearing a jumper since Monday (autumn started then), and finally worked out how to get warmth in the new heated floors – so it's all OK now.

        1. I have resisted putting on the heating, but burning some spare wood has certainly raised the temperature.

    1. Some of my favorite vehicles, including Minis and a Bedfor VAL 6 wheeler coach. Although I have to wonder how they managed to get the Minis that wet without them cutting out – a fault for which they were renowned. Both of ours did that on occasion. Either the ignition system (just behind the grille) or the petrol pump (under the boot floor) would pack it in if they got too wet.

      Great movie though, which is more than can be said for the remake.

          1. Good one. The other theme I always liked was Eye Level, the theme to the original Van der Valk series. I always enjoyed seeing that again as it depicted Amsterdam as I recalled it from living there in the late '80's. These days it is apparently just overrun with "refugees".

      1. We had a teacher at my school named Mrs German.. A bit of a difficult person to say the least. She drove a bubble car and the sixth-form boys carried and put it on a raised area about five steps up.

          1. My Father's student class dismantled their hated lecturers car and reassembled it in his bedroom!
            This was back in late 1940s. Cars were simpler then.

      2. I was at Zandvoort in the early 1960's helping with a friend's FJ car. The Cooper mechanics picked up their minivan and dumped in on the dodgem car floor at the fairground. They found out that the Dutch and English don't have the same sense of humour…

  34. The MoD is consistently late and over budget. The FRES tank is not only nigh 20 years late but it simply doesn't work.

    Why are they being given a bonus at all, let alone considering their utter failure?

    1. From ChatGPT:

      What Happened
      The programme faced delays, cost overruns, and shifting requirements.
      It was effectively cancelled in the late 2000s.
      Elements of FRES evolved into other projects, most notably the Ajax family of tracked reconnaissance vehicles (General Dynamics UK) and consideration of Boxer wheeled vehicles.
      Today, Boxer is being adopted for the Mechanised Infantry Vehicle (MIV) programme, fulfilling some of FRES’s original goals.

      1. So… a complete failure was abandoned and the failure folded in to other programmes tocontinue the funding of the complete failure?

    1. We say it a lot because it's true. Next he'll find a new country to be at war with – then we will always have been at war with them.

  35. Phew! That's the 2nd mini-bulk bag almost filled and, other than cleaning up the existing top stones of the wall round the ledge to take some mortar to bed in the new stones, that's about me ready to do some cement mixing.
    I don't have any sand at the moment, so that will be a phone call to Salisbury & Wood 1st thing on Monday to order a 1 ton bag.

      1. Oddly, we are, but for our new residential customers and a couple of the bigger business ones (as they often plan maintenance over hols).

  36. We both thought the credit card had only been used for my emergency dentist appointment and the home insurance. It seems that despite paying it off in full, various have rolled over.

    Consequently I've just shifted 800 out of savings to clear it completely. I don't say that to boast. It's terrifying: I expected the bill to be about £200.

    1. That's some money, man.
      Expect bills like that for house renovation, but the dentist and insurance? Gee…

      1. Insurance was only £150. Dentist £55. Thus the expected bill.

        We pay it off monthly, in full. Seems we were clobbered by rollovers. Ah well. At least I checked. No new keyboard this month.

    2. If you have a mble phone, you can download your bank/bldg socy app, register and log in as req'd keep a check on every transaction and daily balance, good luck 🙂

    1. As it's public access, the gimmigrants are being paid for by the state, he is a tax payer in fact it is the state committing the crime. He is just taking what he has paid for.

      Big fat state really is confused. It's not their money. It's ours. What they waste it on, is ours. We own them. They are staff. We are master.

      What on earth is big government so terrified of people finding out? What are they hiding that they go to such appalling lengths?

      1. It's called anarcho-tyranny.
        A system of government that fails to enforce or adjudicate protection to its citizens while simultaneously persecuting innocent conduct.
        Taking the pee of the Govt is forbidden.

        Comment & LOL of the week.

        He is probably the only person charged with burglary in this country this year…

        1. Yep, that about sums it up. Every single thing is back to front.

          And… he's stolen from himself!

        1. I tried to get Kadi and Winston to sit still for a photo this afternoon. They both leapt out of the frame whether I was holding them or the photographer.

  37. Captain Sensible
    7h
    Great news: to mark the fiftieth anniversary of roadworks on the M42, between junctions 4 and 7, Helen Whateley MP has announced that they are to receive Grade II heritage listing. She is hopeful that the application for UN World Heritage status will now go forward. “This vital piece of our heritage is emblematic of modern Britain and I am delighted that we can now all share these roadworks and pass them on to future generations” she said.

    1. That's very funny – I recall when I was working (around twenty years ago?) those bloody roadworks were in place…….

      1. I've wasted the afternoon watching racing from York and making generous donations to Ladbrokes' Benevolent Fund. Between races I filch others' contributions on the web for later dissemination. Which ever way you look at it I have been a complete wastrel.

          1. I've never watched a horse race or been to a racetrack, been to a bookies or entered a sweepstake in my life. The only time I went to Aintree was to watch a motor race.

        1. I commented, No time spent watching racing is ever wasted! It refused to upload, then when I pressed post, it said I had already made that comment, but nothing appeared!

  38. Trimdon Tone
    7h
    Hamas still starving the kids?

    Ernest Nowell
    Trimdon Tone
    7h
    Did you see the pictures on TV of those hordes of poor people clamouring for food ? As usual, with propaganda, the shots were taken directly at them. At the end of the clip the camera lifted to show the crowd was ten wide and three deep with open space and few people behind.. Entirely staged!!

    Leo
    Ernest Nowell
    6h
    It’s really strange. For TV purposes it always shows children in the age group of about 1-5 years old who, are definitely starving. However their older siblings and parents look reasonably fit and healthy.
    If I was at all suspicious I might think that the parents were intentionally not feeding these younger children for propaganda purposes.

    Yesterday it showed a father carrying a ‘starved to death’ baby wrapped in a cloth. It was 5 month old. No problem, its mother is pregnant again. Excellent family planning.

    Intriguing
    Ernest Nowell
    7h
    The best one is where the drone pans out and there is a school right next to the pallywood set and there's loads of kids playing and eating food from trestle tables.

      1. Row, row, row your boat
        Gently to the shore
        If they're white, use your might
        A British girl's your whore.

  39. Captain Hindsight
    8h
    Jonathan Gullis is just on Talk, explaining how 80% of the current Tory MPs voted with Labour to block the Bill Cash amendments to the Rwanda bill which would has disapplied parts of the ECHR. That in a nutshell, is exactly why they are finished, as they cannot be trusted.

    1. They were the first boat people as well..
      I bet most of them wished they had never seen the UK.

      1. I'm in a flux Sue, I default back to tanks, but I'll go to the St. George's Cross again.

          1. I'll stay with Charles Martel – the man who saved Europe from the devil-worshippers.

          2. just for the avoidance of doubt, sugar gliders (although grey and squirrels) are not the same as grey squirrels

          1. I once went to White Hart Lane in the late seventies. There was a very good black player Garth Crooks. All the rest were white from memory.

          2. They even had a player called John White in the early 60s.
            Scottish lad he was unfortunately struck by lightning and died whilst playing golf.
            The old stadium is long gone and the new one is rather magnificent.

        1. I've just spotted your new avatar, Sue Mac. I like it! And moving down a little, I see that both sosraboc and Guardian's Quitter have had the same idea.

    1. Gypsys, trans and thieves
      We'd hear it from the people of the town
      They'd call us gypsies, trans and thieves
      But every night all the men would come around
      And lay their money down

      Or not.

    1. The first horsebox was used to land a gamble. The well fancied horse was still down south just before his race in the north. As horses were walked to the course in those days his price drifted out as people thought he couldn't possibly win after walking all that way. In the event, he travelled in a horse-drawn box and won easily at long odds!

      1. They are called Arse nal because Tottenham dog's breath are always behind them, sniffing.

  40. Paleface
    Crimea River
    9h
    If you take the lid off a jar of jam and leave it in the open swarms of pests will be attracted – free jam
    It can be a nightmare but there is a simple solution

    Put the lid back on and the pests will stop coming and go elsewhere

    1. If you throw the pot of jam into the sea something will tidy up the contents and the jar might never be seen again.

          1. Yes, it is – and so is the film (Belleview Rendezvue). I wanted to post a link to the whole thing, but none was available.

  41. Good night all Nottlers a great evenings entertainment thank you all.
    🤗
    Sleep well. 😴

    1. It's a shame that we can't just order up seas like those for the French foreshore at rubber boat launch…

          1. Ay, there's the rub.

            Maybe Lammy could beg his best buddy Vance for the loan of one. The modern gas turbine driven ones are fast enough to deliver quite a "swell".

          2. Ay, there's the rub.

            Maybe Lammy could beg his best buddy Vance for the loan of one. The modern gas turbine driven ones are fast enough to deliver quite a "swell".

    2. Brings back too many memories of waking up in your bunk as it feels like you're falling off your sleeping branch. Apparently it's a deep memory of when we used to sleep in the trees for safety. Oo oo!

      1. MS Venus Bergen to North Shields to Bergen around about 1970s, known as the Vomiting Venus!
        Sister ship was the Jupiter. According to many, the Venus was a really awful ship!

        1. Twas on the good ship Venus,
          By God you should have seen us,
          The figurehead was a whore in bed
          And the mast the Captain's penis.

          The captain of this lugger,
          He was a dirty bugger,
          He wasn't fit to shove shit
          From one place to another.

          The captain's wife was Mabel.
          Whenever she was able,
          She'd fornicate the second mate
          Upon the galley table.

          etcetera etcetera etcetera…

  42. Temp today has been a steady 85F or 30C pretty much all day. It probably won't start dropping until the sun gets low on the horizon. Not that humid, though. Inside a steady 25C, and low humidity. The A/C has been only running very intermittently, a byproduct of plenty of insulation. The installation was designed for a target 100F (38C) outside summer temperature and a 0F, or -18C winter temp. Just as well when my daughter turns up, she sets the thermostat down to about 20C in summer – and still complains of feeling hot.

  43. Anyone still up? My dinner party went well & everyone seemed to enjoy it. Lots of chat and good company. The slow roasted lamb was good too.

    Good night 🌙 😴

  44. Well, chums, it's time for me to climb the stairs to Bedfordshire. Good Night to you all. Sleep well, and hope to see you all tomorrow morning.

  45. Many would say she will reap a very bitter harvest but I am sure one can be sure, it will be her last.

    The whole set up ,as with their partners in criminality the tories in name only, are making hay while the sun shines.

    I'm curious to know where all the gold teeth, hair, clothing is squirreled away.

    Angela Rayner adds to property empire with purchase of holiday home
    Housing Secretary urged to come clean about her council tax as she seeks to impose extra 100pc charge on second homes

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